Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="AllisterH" data-source="post: 4373360" data-attributes="member: 51325">*Shrug* You got to understand the history of gnomes to understand why they weren't that popular. In 1e/2e, the gnome "niche" was that it was a spellcasting dwarf. Basically, the fluff said they were a cousin race to dwarves (In Mystara for example, the lore was that they were designed by Moridin as an offshoot for example) and they basically had the same stats as a dwarf and culture as well. Now, this wouldn't be so bad but there's one thing that really turned gamers off. While Dwarves prided themselves on their beard, gnomes prided themselves on the size of the NOSE. Needless to say, you're not going to get many gamers running around wanting to play it. Throw in the image of the gnomes weren't that hot. For example, I dare anyone to look at the 2E PHB and not wonder why the gnomes looks likes a mini Santa. Then you had TSR's own portrayal of gnomes. 2E produced a lot of campaign settings but let's look at how gnomes were portrayed. 1. Dragonlance gave the abominable tinkergnome schtick which Spelljammer followed up on. 2. Forgotten Realms used a toned down version of the tinker gnome but the only time you went to their homeland was if you wanted guns in your FR. Needless to say, that ain't exactly popular among fans. 3. Ravenloft and Planescape retty much ignored gnomes. I'm honestly blanking in trying to remember a gnome NPC from either Ravenloft or PS.  4. Greyhawk and Mystara mentions them once or twice with regard to their connection to dwarves but after that, they just disappear from the setting. 1. Birthright and Darksun actually killed them off. When 3E lifted the class race restriction, it actually helped kill off gnomes even faster. If you wanted a spellcasting dwarf, why play the gnome just play the real thing. So later on, this "forest dwelling fey" niche seems to been latched on by WOTC but that itself started to horn in on the ELF niche (which the Eladrin represent). If you wanted to play said race, going back to 1E, elves were the "forest dwelling arcanist fey" race. Again, the gnome was pretty much ignored in 2E, got screwed over by 3E and I think 4E finally said, "ok, let's go back to the drawing board and try to get it right"</blockquote>

Verification